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High-voltage electronics

Deep underground in Žižkov, the throb of industrial music
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
April 2nd, 2008 issue

Laptops are the primary instrument for bands like Prague's Schloss Tegal.
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Illusion of Safety, Schloss Tegal, Onde, If Bwana


When: Thursday, April 10, at 8
Where: Bunkr Parukářka (Parukářka Park, Žižkov)
Admission: 120-150 Kč

“The realm of industrial music is like a psychiatric ward,” says Ars Morta’s Tom Novak, sipping on his red wine. He should know. Founding the organization in 1995, Novak ushered in a Prague scene whose mottos include “industrial autonomy” and “this world is not our home.” To some, it may be telling that Ars Morta’s ongoing series at Bunkr Parukářka has recently hosted musical projects with names like Brutophilia and Napalmed.
All of which is part of an agenda that Novak describes this way: “To promote and present the electronic industrial scene in the vast and colorful variety of its styles and sub-genres … ranging from heavy power electronics via dark-ambient, death-industrial and orchestral-industrial, turntablism and integrated music to subtle electronic microscapes.”
Since its inception in the shadowy corners of what Novak calls “the wolf-den underground,” industrial has been one of rock music’s most prolific research and development facilities. In hindsight, industrial’s impulse can be heard in synth-pop, heavy metal, post-punk, ambient and techno. Yet industrial’s initial impact was not without serious misgivings. As one of industrial music’s grandfathers, Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge, told Re/Search magazine in the early ’80s, “Sometimes I think we’ve given birth to a monster, uncontrollable, thrashing, spewing forth mentions of Auschwitz for no reason.”
This musical Frankenstein is far from tamed. Fortunately, however, over time, thoughtful artists have continued to develop industrial music’s more complex and creative potential.
Ars Morta’s next show at Bunkr sweeps through industrial’s more sublime territories.
The headliner is Illusion of Safety, whose Dan Burke says, “It may be argued that the real root of this form is the human condition in relation to the state of civilization.” The founder of IOS, Burke began his experiments in the ’80s. Like many industrial music pioneers, he was first inspired by Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Soon, though, his explorations began to reflect an interest in noise-core spin-offs like Ramleh and Whitehouse.
Today IOS’s music is an open-minded synthesis that includes roots in industrial, but also encompasses what Burke describes as “the similar thinking I explored in the art and music of Cage, Stockhausen, Varese, Ferrari and with the [mid-20th century] Futurists.” As a result, IOS is as likely to be compared to the Hafler Trio as Throbbing Gristle, exploring not only the dynamics of industrial music but notions found in avant-garde, classical and jazz. Speaking of these similarities, Burke adds, “We like dissonance. We are contrarians. Artists tend toward the extreme and are compelled to push boundaries.”
Technology has played no small part in recent years in pushing the boundaries for artists like IOS. “The influx of new computer speeds and other innovations now make what we dreamed about 15 years ago possible,” Burke says. “We have a new method of working that enables the same focus on structure, using texture, noise, ambience, electro-acoustics and field recordings. But the output has a more defined sound, and I believe the structures are more interesting and coherent.”
New York’s If Bwana, which opens the evening, shares much of IOS’s broad-based dynamic. In contrast with the mostly electronic night, Belgium’s Onde has a set planned that adds strings and trumpet to its feedback arsenal. The sound most likely to have the audience climbing the walls, though, will be the notorious audio horror of Prague’s Schloss Tegal.
The transformed bomb shelter renamed Bunkr Parukářka is particularly accommodating for all the above. As promoter Novak notes, “It’s closed and 30 meters under the ground, and serves a special notion and feeling of claustrophobia.” It also has walls lined with rock-climbing stubs, which should make for an interesting mix.
Whatever the setting, industrial continues its ascent as one of contemporary music’s most individualistic channels of expression. Despite changes in machinery, this floodgate of auditory invention stays open thanks a spontaneous fervor that demands immediate use of what IOS’s Burke calls “choice, and how one uses the tools and choices at hand.”

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (2/04/2008):

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